STATE MODELS AND THE JONES POLYNOMIAL

Abstract

IN THIS PAPER I construct a state model for the (original) Jones polynomial [5]. (In [6] a state model was constructed for the Conway polynomial.) As we shall see, this model for the Jones polynomial arises as a normalization of a regular isotopy invariant of unoriented knots and links, called here the bracket polynomial, and denoted 〈K〉 for a link projectionK . The concept of regular isotopy will be explained below. The bracket polynomial has a very simple state model. In §2 (Theorem 2.10) I use the bracket polynomial to prove (via Proposition 2.9 and an observation of Kunio Murasugi) that the number of crossings in a connected, reduced alternating projection of a link L is a topological invariant of L. (A projection is reduced if it has no isthmus in the sense of Fig. 5.) In other words, any two connected, reduced alternating projections of the link L have the same number of crossings. This is a remarkable application of our technique. It solves affirmatively a conjecture going back to the knot tabulations of Tait, Kirkman and Little over a century ago (see [6], [9], [10]). Along with this application to alternating links, we also use the bracket polynomial to obtain a necessary condition for an alternating reduced link diagram to be ambient isotopic to its mirror image (Theorem 3.1). One consequence of this theorem is that a reduced alternating diagram with twist number greater than or equal to one-third the number of crossings is necessarily chiral. The paper is organized as follows. In §2 the bracket polynomial is developed, and its relationship with the Jones polynomial is explained. This provides a self-contained introduction to the Jones polynomial and to our techniques. The last part of §2 contains the applications to alternating knots, and to bounds on the minimal and maximal degrees of the polynomial. §3 contains the results about chirality of alternating knots. §4 discusses the structure of our state model in the case of braids. Here the states have an algebraic structure related to Jones’s representation of the braid group into a Von Neumann Algebra.